MKG Chats With Ali Huda

MKG Chats With Ali Huda

We recently had a chat with Maruf Yusupov, founder of Ali Huda Kids TV. Be sure to read through till the end for a link to receive 50% off your first month.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Maruf. I am a father of 3 amazing kids, alhamdulillah. I am also a serial entrepreneur. Born in Uzbekistan – the birthplace of Imam Bukhari, Al Kharizmi and many other Muslim scholars in the past. Relocated to Denmark to study in 2013. I got married here in Denmark. I have been living and working here since then.

Can you tell us what Ali and Huda is?

Ali Huda is a “Netflix” for Muslim kids. In other words, it is a subscription-based video on demand platform. Muslim parents pay monthly fees. Muslim kids watch ad-free curated shows as much as they like. We believe in education + entertainment. So no matter what show we take on board, we pay close attention that each show not only entertains but educates as well.

What inspired you to create Ali and Huda TV?

As an entrepreneur, sometimes you have an aha moment. You think of something new. However, Ali Huda was not born out of an aha moment. As mentioned earlier, I am a father of 3 kids. I have been struggling with the limited options we have as Muslim parents for our kids for some years now.

Even though there were some attempts to create a space for our kids to watch, due to quality and quantity of the content available, many kids find it very boring and stopped using these services after a month or two.

We knew what a huge task it is to create a media platform with quality shows in quantity. After talking to many Muslim parents, friends, families and most importantly for my own kids, we decided to create Ali Huda. It is a peace of mind for Muslim parents where their kids can watch entertaining and educating shows without compromising core Islamic values.

How has the response been and are there any favourite shows?

Alhamdulillah, so far the response has been massive. We have funded our crowdfunding campaign earlier in August which again reassured our early findings on the needs for such a platform. Since then we have on-boarded 1000s of children who enjoy Ali Huda on a daily basis.

My kids are in different ages from 3, 7 to 9. So each watches different shows. My son Dawud watches some live shows from Eman Channel like Activ8. My daughter enjoys Brainy Bunch, Misri Bunch, Ummi and Omamo as well.

What other projects are you currently working on?

Our team is mainly focusing on 3 things these days. First, it is acquiring more users. Second, our developers are working on launching 5 TV apps by the end of 2017, iA. Last but not the least, we are working day and night to license more shows for Ali Huda so our kids have more and more shows to watch.

Where do you see Ali and Huda in 5 years?

In 3-6 months, our main focus will be to acquire as many shows as we can. In the long run, 1 to 5 years, we will be producing our own shows, inshaAllah. We need shows that cover not only basics but inspire, educate and entertain on a world-class level. In order to do this, we need to set up our own production studios.

By the time we achieve those above-mentioned milestones, Ali Huda may reach millions of Muslim kids around the world, inshaAllah.

What platforms can we find Ali and Huda on?

Ali Huda is platform agnostic. We want to serve our customers wherever they are. So we are developing Ali Huda not only as a website or mobile apps but TV apps as well. We are already on www.alihuda.com, iOS, Android, tvOS (Apple TV), Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Samsung TV App. Besides you can also Chromecast or AirPlay 🙂

What do you enjoy doing with your kids?

As mentioned earlier, I have 3 kids. One boy at 9. 2 girls at 7 and 3. As you can imagine, their interest scattered among different things. As a family, we love going out in nature as often as we can.

What are your hopes for the future of Muslim Kids?

As it seems now based on what we can see in USA and Europe, Islamaphobia will be on the rise. Unfortunately, mass media will be painting billions of Muslims with a single “terrorist” brush.

Hence, it will be much more important than any other time for us as Muslim parents to teach our kids our history of Islam, our legacy as Muslim Ummah and most importantly to inspire them to be future leaders of ummah and humanity.

A way to achieve this is storytelling. Stories are as old as humanity as we know from the books of Allah SWT. We want to bring a world-class storytelling inspired by the prophets of Islam, the companions of our prophet and many Muslim scholars, scientists and inventors, inshaAllah.

I believe as a media, Ali Huda will be playing a role in inspiring our future leaders, inshaAllah.

Faaiza is the writer behind the blog Modest Munchies. Shes an avid baker, chocolate lover, recipe creator and crafter. Faaiza planned to be an accountant and subsequently a teacher, but after qualifying as both, being a stay at home mum took preference. Her teaching qualification is handy as she plans to homeschool her son and daughter, and has also inspired many creative learning ideas and crafts on her blog. Once a primarily food blog, Modest Munchies naturally developed to became an outlet for her to unleash her creativity.